The farm bills now before Congress — one from the Senate, the other from the House — attest, if
nothing else, to the inertia of politics. There is no “public interest” in having government
subsidize farmers. Food would be produced without subsidies. The uncertainties and insecurities
faced by farmers from unpredictable weather and global markets, though often compelling, are
paralleled by the uncertainties and insecurities faced by many industries from disruptive
technologies, erratic business cycles and shifting public tastes. Yet, unlike most industries,
agriculture is lavishly subsidized and protected by government.

The explanation is force of habit. Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, when there were
plausible reasons to aid farmers, government has consistently accorded agriculture special
treatment. The politics of doing so long ago became self-perpetuating. Without the massive
subsidies, the Agriculture Department would be far less important. So would the congressional
agriculture committees and the crowd of farm groups that lobby for benefits. And certainly the
farmers who receive payments and protections feel entitled to them.

All this creates a powerful and shared vested interest in safeguarding the status quo, even as
interest groups and their congressional champions fight over the structure and distribution of
benefits. The cost has been considerable. From 1995 to 2012, the subsidies totaled $293 billion —
more than $16 billion annually — according to the Environmental Working Group, a critic of present
programs. This understates the true costs, because it includes only the on-budget costs of explicit
subsidies. Excluded are higher consumer prices paid on some products (sugar, for instance) that are
partially shielded from market competition.

The congressional agriculture committees faced a special challenge this year because huge
federal deficits have put pressure on spending. The committees straddled this difficulty by
claiming to make substantial savings while actually extending expensive programs. In press
releases, the Senate Agriculture Committee says its bill will cut deficits by $24 billion from 2014
to 2023. This sounds like a lot but isn’t. Even if the savings occur, the Congressional Budget
Office estimates that farm subsidies will total almost $190 billion over the decade.

And the savings may not materialize. The projections depend on assumptions about market prices
and crop yields that, in the past, have often proved optimistic, says the Environmental Working
Group’s Scott Faber.

Consider the farm bills as a public-relations exercise. To make subsidies more acceptable,
Congress is repackaging them. “Direct payments” to farmers are ending, because they seem (and are)
a straightforward giveaway. Instead, “crop insurance” — which seems prudent protection against
droughts and other misfortunes — is being expanded. In reality, crop insurance resembles “a
farm-income support program” more than standard insurance, writes economist Bruce Babcock of Iowa
State University in a report for the Environmental Working Group. Farmers’ premiums cover only 40
percent of costs; taxpayers pick up 60 percent. With premiums subsidized, farmers buy generous
coverage that produces payouts even in many good years. The CBO puts the 10-year cost at $89
billion.

The survival of farm subsidies is emblematic of a larger problem: Government is biased toward
the past. Old programs, tax breaks and regulatory practices develop strong constituencies and
mindsets that frustrate change, even when earlier justifications for their existence have been
overtaken by events. It’s no longer possible to argue that ag subsidies will prevent the loss of
small family farms, because millions already have disappeared.

The larger lesson must be discouraging. Among other qualities, good government requires the
capacity to adapt to change. It needs to discard what doesn’t work or is no longer necessary. It
needs to devote its limited resources — in time, skill and money — to the problems where it might
do some good. In the best of circumstances, this is difficult. But routine politics compounds the
difficulty, as the immortal farm subsidies and endless debates over budget deficits attest.